It's all fodder to the corporations that churn out this stuff. Some fodder is better than other fodder, that's all. Brian Fuller is one of the least hacky people working on broadcast today, but if he was a real artiste, why is he remaking some dumb show from the 60s? And shoehorning Universal's back catalog of monsters into the show, yeah right, that wasn't done to kiss corporate ass.

I'm not saying the results won't be entertaining, but I'm not expecting art. Very little of what's on TV is even close to being art, and what little there is, is on cable. I watch TV for fun. If I want art, I'll go to a museum.

We may get a complete reinvention of Star Trek for instance, but the motive won't be art. It will be that it's been sold in someplace like AMC or Showtime, where it has to be reinvented to be a viable business proposition. And it may turn out that that new version of Star Trek is more artistic than anything previously, but it will be because of commerce, not art.

Exactly. It's all about commerce and fodder, not creativity. New ideas are derived from old ones, like Forbidden Planet was derived from The Tempest, and that's great; it's even understandable, although usually unnecessary and inferior, to do a remake. But to create an original idea, like Fuller has here, and populate it with recycled names from an old TV series is just weird. He's proven what he can do with Pushing Daisies, and he should be doing that here-- just jettison all the baggage and be completely original.

^It's not weird at all. It's what creators have done for thousands of years. The ancients told the tale of Pyramus and Thisbe; a medieval Italian author turned it into a novella about Romeus and Juliet; Shakespeare turned that into a play called Romeo and Juliet; then Bernstein and Sondheim turned that into a musical called West Side Story. Virtually all of Shakespeare's plays were adapted from pre-existing literature, drama, history, and myth, reinvented by Shakespeare into completely new and different works, and many of his works have in turn been reinterpreted into new classics, not just WSS but Forbidden Planet, Ran, even The Lion King if you consider that a classic. This is a normal part of how creativity has always worked. The only thing that's weird is thinking it's weird.

He's proven what he can do with Pushing Daisies, and he should be doing that here-- just jettison all the baggage and be completely original.

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Pushing Daisies was cancelled after two short seasons. In other words, it failed. Bryan Fuller might want to do something totally original again, but he doesn't control the money -- the Hollywood studios, and the advertisers, do -- and they've always been risk-adverse. Better to back a pre-sold property that will have a built-in audience then to back something harder to market.

It's all fodder to the corporations that churn out this stuff. Some fodder is better than other fodder, that's all. Brian Fuller is one of the least hacky people working on broadcast today, but if he was a real artiste, why is he remaking some dumb show from the 60s? And shoehorning Universal's back catalog of monsters into the show, yeah right, that wasn't done to kiss corporate ass.

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Or maybe he just has a genuine nostalgic fondness for all those old classic monsters and thinks it would be great fun to bring them back?

Why assume some crass commerical motive?

I grew on the old Universal Monster movies and would jump at the chance to do something with the Creature from the Black Lagoon or the Bride of Frankenstein . . . .

In fact, as I'm typing this, I'm looking at the framed, autographed photo of the Creature hanging on my office wall. As well as the Grandpa Munster and Phantom of the Opera action figures on my bookshelf.

Just because it's "some dumb show from the 60's" to you doesn't mean it that it has no value to others. We all have our own icons and fannish obsessions.

How do we know that Bryan Fuller isn't simply a fan having fun with characters he adores?

EXCLUSIVE: The first big drama project of the 2012 pitch season has hit the marketplace. Sleepy Hollow hails from Transformers writers Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, with Underworld helmer Len Wiseman on board to direct.

... based on the legend of Sleepy Hollow. It follows Ichabod Crane as he partners with Sleepy Hollow’s local female sheriff to solve the mysteries of a town ravaged by the battle between good and evil.

Sleepy Hollow does sound fun, Lee Pace would be a good choice for the lead, but aren't those guys supposed to be working on the next Star Trek on TV instead? Same as Fuller, really. and I was hoping for a historical setting, at least that would be more unique.

Sounds like another dreadful procedural dressed up with fantasy trappings to me. And with all of these police shows, why on earth can't a new version of Alien Nation (far and away the most interesting sf cop show that I've seen) get off the ground?

Sounds like another dreadful procedural dressed up with fantasy trappings to me. And with all of these police shows, why on earth can't a new version of Alien Nation (far and away the most interesting sf cop show that I've seen) get off the ground?

Knowing how networks think (i.e. assuming that the success or failure of a show is a function of its category or subject matter rather than its quality), I wouldn't be surprised if the failure of the V reboot has hurt the chances of the Alien Nation reboot getting made.

Anyway, although I'm not opposed to reboots and reinventions as a rule, I'd rather see an in-continuity sequel to Alien Nation than a reboot. I loved the world created by that show; it really felt real and tangible to me. (While the show was on the air, I bought into its reality so fully that when I was outside and saw a bald man in the distance, for a split-second I'd think it was a Newcomer.) So I'd love to revisit that world and see how it's evolved over the past 20 years. (It's different from Star Trek, which has already had plenty of chances to expand its world, so it's gotten to the point where I'd be intrigued to see a truly distinct take on it. Alien Nation, by contrast, only got one season, a few TV movies, and a smattering of novels and comics of variable quality, so I feel that world still has a lot of untapped potential.)

I don't see the point of doing this concept in the modern day. That's just Supernatural/Grimm all over again. But a supernatural or even sci fi series in a historical (pre-1950s) setting would interest me.

Someone should dust off that Poe pilot that ABC rejected a couple seasons back, cast an appropriate actor in the lead (someone like Michael Emerson) and give that a shot.

I think the boat has passed on an Alien Nation continuation, sadly. The series ended in 1990, and the last TV movie (a ratings failure) aired in mid-1997. The cast and the crew has aged quite a bit, and it's not a property with more than limited nostalgia value.

It's such an interesting and perpetually relevant concept (perhaps more so now than in 1988-1997) that I hope it's returned to eventually, though. A shame Tim Minear's remake didn't come to fruition.

I think the boat has passed on an Alien Nation continuation, sadly. The series ended in 1990, and the last TV movie (a ratings failure) aired in mid-1997. The cast and the crew has aged quite a bit, and it's not a property with more than limited nostalgia value.

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Well, I wasn't talking about a revival with the same characters, but more like a new series set in the same reality, with maybe some guest appearances or supporting roles by some of the original cast. As I said, the original show created such a rich reality that there's potential in it for doing more than just one set of characters in one city. (The comic-book tie-ins at the time were along those lines: they weren't about the TV cast, but were about other, original characters in the same world.) Although it would be nice and nostalgic to follow up on the original cast, I'm more interested in seeing how American society would've evolved after having Newcomers around for over 20 years (or less, if you set it in the present instead of five years in the future like the original).

If you did it that way, approached it like Trek: TNG with a new series and cast in the same universe -- with a different situation because the aliens have been around longer and they and the world have had more time to adapt -- then you could have a fresh, new series while still continuing the universe of the old series.

So I finished Electric City and the last ten episodes... are not really different than the first ten. There's not a lot of narrative focus on any one set of characters, so some stuff happens without any real reason, the world building is minimal, and the Spite Old Bitches motivations for their methods aren't well developed. There's a few things in the back half that should've been done in the first half, like set up the whole "Outside" thing, show off the hydroelectric power generators, and demonstrate that the world is full of harsh weather (which would make the SOBs' decisions more understandable), but this really feels like it's a miniseries pitching itself to an actual network than an actual story.

Blastr has put up some quotes from the Defiance TV show cast members describing their characters while they were at Comic-Con.

Julie Benz: "I play Amanda Rosewater, the newly appointed mayor of the town of Defiance. She is a little in over her head trying to keep the peace amongst the humans and the aliens. I've worked a lot in genre shows, and what I love is how strong the female characters are, and in this show specifically, the men are great but I think the power lies with the women. Each female character is so well formed and thought out. They each have their power, and there's no victim. It really resonated with me in the script."
Stephanie Leonidas: "I play Irisa, who travels to Defiance with Nolan (Grant Bowler), who is basically her father figure. Even though he's human and she's alien they have quite a fiery relationship. They are fiercely loyal to one another, but as any father/daughter relationship they have their ups and down ... just with knives. We end up at Defiance, and I'm not happy about being there at the moment. I am very quiet in the show and I don't talk much, but when I do it's because I am very passionate about something. You wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of her."
Grant Bowler: "My character, Nolan, comes in with Irisa in the open of the show. He was once a part of a unit that Defiance was named after. He was in a group of heroes that ended the Pale Wars and stopped this worldwide catastrophe. He's since become a scavenger and a ne'er-do-well, which I identify with more than the whole hero thing. The only decent thing he's done since is take this young creature in and raise her. He's all about what he can get, and his objective is to kiss all the girls in town in order to win all the money. He ends up in a position of authority, which isn't really a good thing."
Mia Kirshner: "I play a Kenya, a madam, or a pleasure ambassador. She inhabits this world where she can cross over between different species. She runs this club [The Need/Want] that she's created where every fantasy you have exists within this club. She is a very complex, magical, dangerous, naughty character. What I love about the character is that she's grounded in a very strong reality."
Jaime Murray: "I play Stahma Tarr, and I'm married to Datak Tarr (Tony Curran). I come from a very powerful family in a caste system. It's a patriarchal society, and women don't have a lot of power, which doesn't sit well with my character. She finds her power in other ways, which is fun and interesting."
Tony Curran: "I play Datak, who is married to Stahma, and he's from the lowest caste and the lowest rung of the ladder imaginable. He's an uncompromising survivor. She's the words in the relationship, and I'm the action. Datak tends to get aggressive and be on the front foot. We met on the ark on the way from their planet. Back on our planet, if she would have married me it would have been a scandal, because she would have dropped from the top caste and had to live in squalor. But we're quite a full-on couple."

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I find it rather ironic that Stephanie Leonidas is in this, because I was thinking about watching MirrorMask again, and it got me wondering what she was up too.

Pushing Daisies was cancelled after two short seasons. In other words, it failed. Bryan Fuller might want to do something totally original again, but he doesn't control the money -- the Hollywood studios, and the advertisers, do -- and they've always been risk-adverse. Better to back a pre-sold property that will have a built-in audience then to back something harder to market.

Because it's a business. The money is controlled by people with crass commercial motives.

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Well, yes, but that doesn't mean the people they hire to do the creating aren't genuinely inspired. Hell, Greg and I get paid to write Star Trek novels, which is all a commercial enterprise where the studio is concerned, but I can assure you that we both love Star Trek deeply as fans and are motivated by the love of the work and the concepts. Yes, we do it for money, but you do your job for money too, so you're being a hypocrite if you condemn others for doing the same. Everyone needs to earn money to pay their rent and put food on the table, but that doesn't mean you can't truly love your job and be inspired by other factors as well.

How do we know that Bryan Fuller isn't simply a fan having fun with characters he adores?

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Because they're not the characters he adores. They're new characters with the names of characters he adores.

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What a ludicrously absolutist and ignorant thing to say. I've been trying to explain to you for days that it's possible to respect the essence of an earlier creation and change it at the same time. After all, every creation, every worthwhile character or premise, has more than one single attribute. It's possible to carry forward the essential qualities that make a character or a concept while modifying other aspects and thus casting those essentials in a new light. Creators have been doing that for thousands of years too. Was Van Gogh not really painting a starry night? Was Dali not really painting pocketwatches? Did Picasso not really paint Dora Maar? Creativity is about taking an existing source and interpreting it in a new way. The interpretation does not erase the substance of the original -- not if you make the effort to look past the superficial and see the underlying essence.

Because it's a business. The money is controlled by people with crass commercial motives.

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Well, yes, but that doesn't mean the people they hire to do the creating aren't genuinely inspired. Hell, Greg and I get paid to write Star Trek novels, which is all a commercial enterprise where the studio is concerned, but I can assure you that we both love Star Trek deeply as fans and are motivated by the love of the work and the concepts. Yes, we do it for money, but you do your job for money too, so you're being a hypocrite if you condemn others for doing the same. Everyone needs to earn money to pay their rent and put food on the table, but that doesn't mean you can't truly love your job and be inspired by other factors as well..

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Exactly. I was just harping about this in another thread recently. There's this weird mentality one runs into, where movies and tv and books are concerned, that insists that motives are either purely artistic OR "just about the money." Instead of, say, creative people trying to do what they love while also trying to make a living.

Seriously, does anyone really think that all artistic decisions made on any TV show are driven entirely by commercial concerns? Why would people even get into that business if they didn't enjoy the creative end of things? Why not just become a stock broker or orthodontist if you just want to make money?

Why not give Fuller the benefit of the doubt and assume he just wanted to include the Creature because he thought it would be cool or funny or entertaining or whatever?

Lord knows when I'm struggling with a scene or a funny bit of dialogue I'm not thinking, "Hmm. Which plot twist will make the publisher the most money? Will this fight scene hurt my royalties?"

(I wrote a book once in which Frankenstein fought Wonder Woman. Did I get paid for that book? Sure. Did the publisher hope to make money by printing it? Sure. But did my inner ten-year-old get a ball out of writing that scene? Of course!)